Tickets for Death (7 page)

Chapter Nine:
MIKE FIGURES THE ANGLES

PHYLLIS WAS SITTING IN A DEEP CHAIR in the ladies’ lounge of the lobby, a self-conscious little nook set off from the main lobby by potted palms and ferns, decorated here and there with bright red poinsettia blossoms in tall, earth-filled urns. Her big dark eyes were anxious and a tiny frown showed between her brows.

When Shayne walked in at the front door the frown evaporated as she went swiftly to meet him. She caught his arm, looked up into his face, and the frown appeared again.

“Michael! What on earth is the matter with your face!”

He patted her hand, propelling her firmly toward the empty and secluded lounge. “Not so loud, angel. You see, it was this way—I was driving along the highway, and there in front of me, clearly visible in the headlights, was a little kitten. It looked awfully thin and hungry and run down at the heels, so I stopped and took it in. Now, you know I’m always kind to animals, and I was kind to this one, but believe it or not, it scratched me.”

Phyllis’s soft young mouth tightened. “Blonde or brunette?” she asked.

“This was one of those little yellow kittens—a common variety,” he returned, still patting her hand.

“After this, I’ll go with you,” she said.

Shayne answered her with a soft chuckle but he did not commit himself.

Phyllis stiffened and pulled her arm away from him as they reached the deserted lounge. “Will Gentry is here,” she said in an anxious undertone.

“Now, Phyl, be reasonable,” he urged. “Where?” His eyes darted around the main lobby searching for the chief of the Miami detective bureau.

“He’s upstairs—in our suite.” She sat down in one of the deep chairs and spread her hands in a prim, indignant gesture. “He and Chief Boyle are up there waiting for you. Mr. Gentry sounded quite grim when he telephoned and I said you were out but that I expected you back any minute. I slipped out and left the door open before he got there. I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to see him, so I came down to warn you.” She glanced up at his face again. “I go to all this trouble when you come back looking like—”

“That was fast thinking, darling,” he interrupted. He grinned widely. “Must be something on the Martin killing.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” she answered faintly.

Looking past her, past the screening palms and ferns and flowers, the redheaded detective stiffened. A deep line formed at the outer corner of each nostril, angled down to his wide mouth.

Phyllis glanced up and saw his face. “What—” she began.

“Oh. Yeh, I heard you, angel.” His tone was studiously casual. He turned slowly and looked down at her. “Why don’t you run out to the races and amuse yourself?”

“And leave you here—in trouble? No.”

“Trouble?” Shayne scoffed. “Not in Cocopalm. I’ve got the toughs eating out of my hand.”

“But what about Mr. Gentry—and Chief Boyle?”

“I’ll teach them to eat out of my hand too,” Shayne assured her lightly. He swung her up from the chair. “You run along to the track and pick some losers, angel. I’ll finish things up here and try to get out for the last race. Watch for me around the jinny pit.”

She pouted and then raised gay, shining eyes to his. “I was just fooling about the kitty, Michael. I’ll go—if you’re sure there’s nothing I can do.”

“Not a damned thing, angel.” He guided her to the door and called to the doorman, “Get the lady a cab to the dog track.”

He kissed her lips, then stood in the doorway to watch her disappear into a cab. When it wheeled away, he drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped beads of sweat from his face. The lines deepened on his gaunt jaw and his eyes were bleak when he turned back into the lobby. He walked to the desk and beckoned the clerk with a jerk of his head. “Have you a Mr. Samuelson registered from Miami?”

“Mr. M. Samuelson and party. Yes, sir. They arrived less than half an hour ago.”

Shayne said, “Thanks,” and turned away. A reckless light glinted in his gray eyes. He strode toward two men sitting close together on a padded bench where they could watch people get on and off the elevators.

He stopped directly in front of them on widespread feet. One of them pretended to be reading a newspaper while the other was busy cleaning his finger nails with a steel file.

Shayne addressed the newspaper reader coldly. “You boys are off your beat tonight.”

The man lifted glacially blue eyes at Shayne over the rim of his paper. He was about thirty with an athletic, well-knit body. He wore a sober brown suit with somber shirt and four-in-hand. His face was without expression, as inhumanly cold as his eyes. He said, “Scram,” and dropped his gaze again to the newspaper.

Shayne did not move except to thrust his hands deep into his trouser pockets and teeter forward. The younger man glanced up quickly to meet the detective’s eyes. He had sulky lips and his plump cheeks were covered with a soft down. Long, dark lashes added to an effeminate appearance. He wore a wasp-waisted sports coat of expensive material with square padded shoulders. A faint flush crept into his cheeks as Shayne’s lips upquirked in harsh amusement. He glanced quickly aside at his older companion and then began carefully inspecting his nails.

In a tone of gentle derision, Shayne said, “I’m surprised Maxie lets you associate with a tough baboon like this one, Melvin. Isn’t he afraid Hymie might rub off some of the bloom?”

Melvin squirmed. He glanced at his companion again, entreating him to do something.

Hymie lowered his newspaper. He fixed his glacial eyes on the bottom button of Shayne’s coat and advised dispassionately, “Go on back to your knitting, shamus. You’re out of your territory too.”

“Maybe,” said Shayne, “this is some of my knitting.”

Hymie shook his head slowly. “Don’t push us around. We got as much right here as you have.”

Shayne’s smile was bland. “Why, sure. You’ll like it here in Cocopalm, Hymie. Only I thought maybe you didn’t know I was cleaning up the town. If they start running in gorillas from Miami I’m going to get sore.”

Hymie grunted and put his newspaper up in front of his face again. Shayne transferred his attention to the younger man. “When you see Maxie again, tell him I was in Mayme Martin’s room this afternoon when she phoned him.” He turned and went to the elevator.

The door of his suite was standing open. He walked in and nodded casually to Will Gentry and Chief Boyle. The Miami detective chief was a big thick-shouldered man with a pleasant, beefy face. He and Boyle were both working on fat cigars and the room was foul with smoke.

Shayne asked, “Why haven’t you birds taken advantage of my hospitality to order a drink—or hadn’t you got round to that yet?”

“We just hadn’t got round to it, Mike,” Gentry rumbled. “Make mine Scotch and soda.”

Shayne turned to the Cocopalm chief, and Boyle nodded with some constraint. “The same for me.”

Shayne went into the bedroom and crossed to the night table. He ordered two highballs sent up. When he re-entered the living-room, Gentry said placidly, “That wife of yours puts on a slick disappearing act, Mike. She answered the phone but ducked out before I could get up on the elevator.”

“She’s determined to be helpful.” Shayne grinned widely. “She waylaid me down in the lobby to warn me that a couple of hounds of the law were lying in wait for me up here.”

“And you came up anyway?” Gentry squinted at him through a screen of thick blue smoke. “That means you’re ready to come clean, eh?”

“On what?” Shayne went into the bathroom and poured himself a drink of cognac. The boy was at the door with the two whiskies when he returned. Shayne tipped him and signed the check, then passed the tall glasses to his guests. He sat down, swinging one leg over the arm of his chair.

“I think you know what I’m talking about, Mike.”

“Maybe I do. Maybe not. Do you want to make a parlor quiz out of it?”

Gentry sighed and shifted his heavy bulk. “A woman named Mayme Martin was murdered in Miami tonight.”

Shayne pursed his lips and whistled. “Murdered, eh?”

Gentry nodded emphatically. “The killer messed things up trying to make it look like suicide by using a safety-razor blade. The medical examiner says she was dead before her throat was slit.”

Shayne held up his glass and squinted through it. “Why are you telling me about it?”

“Are you going to deny that you knew her?”

“N-o-o,” Shayne hedged. “I won’t deny that I had met her, Will. But we didn’t get very well acquainted. I never saw her before this afternoon.”

“She checked into the Red Rose from Cocopalm this afternoon,” Gentry told him. “You called on her just before dark—the only visitor she had. Then you came helling up here. What’s the connection?”

“When was she killed?” Shayne countered.

“Evidently not long after you went up to talk to her. The doctor hadn’t got around to picking an exact time.”

“If I had done it,” Shayne growled, “I wouldn’t have been fool enough to think I could cross you up by slitting her throat after she was dead.”

Will Gentry nodded unhappily. “I’m not going to hang the murder on you,” he protested. “But she’s mixed up in this Cocopalm thing somehow. I thought she might have told you something that would give us a line to work on.”

“She didn’t tell me anything, Will. She claimed she had information worth a grand to me. That’s as far as we got.”

“Information about what?”

“This counterfeiting deal.”

“I was pretty sure there had to be a connection. That makes three killings in one evening, Mike.” He looked at the redheaded detective reproachfully. “Boyle says you hadn’t more than reached town before you blasted two of the local yokels.”

“In self-defense,” Shayne replied cheerfully.

“I know all about that. But the Martin woman wasn’t murdered in self-defense.” Gentry paused to sip his drink. “Nobody in the apartment house saw anybody else go in or out of her room except you.”

“Did you talk to the redhead at the end of the hall?”

“Yep. She says you acted funny. Passed her by when she gave you the come-on.”

Shayne grinned, then stated flatly, “Mayme Martin was plenty alive when I left her room.”

“Maybe so. But the hell of it is nobody saw her alive afterward.”

“No one,” Shayne corrected, “that you know anything about.”

“Well, yes. You were the only one seen visiting her.”

“I know at least one person who saw her after I did.”

“Good. I thought maybe you’d have something, Mike. Who was it?”

Shayne shook his head solemnly. “Not yet, Will. I’ve got to figure the angles.”

Will Gentry’s manner became brusque. “Don’t hold out on me.”

“But I’ve got to see where I stand,” Shayne protested. “Maybe I’ve got something to trade on. If I give it to you I won’t have anything left.”

“If you don’t give it to me you’re going to be in pretty deep yourself.”

“So that’s the way it is?”

Gentry lifted a square, pudgy palm. “I’m giving it to you straight. We found a little something in her room that I think you can explain.”

Shayne’s eyes narrowed and his face took on a hard, pinched expression. He wasn’t deceived by Will Gentry’s placidly casual approach. They had been friends a long time, but Gentry never mixed friendship with business. Shayne knew he would get a square deal from the Miami detective chief, but no more than that.

He said, “I’m willing to explain anything I can, but I swear to God, Will, I don’t know any more about the woman than you do.”

“Are you sure of that? Sure you never saw her before this evening?”

Shayne nodded and growled, “I’ve never had to prove a statement to you before.”

“You’ve never made the mistake of making one I think I can disprove,” Gentry told him.

Shayne’s wide mouth tightened. He started to say something, but restrained himself. Gentry was selecting an envelope from among several in his coat pocket. He opened it in his lap and selected a torn slip of paper. He held it toward Shayne and asked, “Ever see that before?”

Shayne looked down at his own name and Miami telephone number written in blue ink on the piece of paper. Below were the two words
Thursday afternoon.

He wrinkled his forehead and shook his head. “Why should I have seen it before?”

“It was in Miss Martin’s purse. It isn’t her writing. There wasn’t any blue ink in her apartment. It looks more like the sort of thing a man would write and give a woman when he wanted her to call him on a certain day. This is Thursday.”

“Sure. And yesterday was Wednesday. Why does that mean I’ve seen it before?”

“Positive it isn’t your writing?” Gentry persisted. “It looks a hell of a lot like the way you write your name, Mike. Boyle and I compared it with your signature downstairs when you registered.”

“That’s right,” Boyle agreed.

Shayne snorted disgust through his nose. “It’s no more like my writing than that of a thousand other men. Give it to your handwriting expert and he’ll point out a thousand differences.”

“I’ll do that.” Gentry sighed and took the slip of paper from the detective, replaced it in its identifying envelope. “If that’s all you’ve got—” Shayne began angrily, but Gentry shook his head and held up his hand.

“On top of that,” he said, “and maybe it isn’t your writing, what happened here in the hotel tonight looks to me like pretty good proof that she
did
tell you something. Are you going to deny that you had advance information that you were going to be jumped by those two torpedoes when you arrived?”

Shayne’s gray eyes were frosty with suppressed anger. “Suppose I do deny it?”

“It’s going to be pretty hard for me to swallow, Mike. In the first place, why did you take a gun with you when you went to Hardeman’s room? I’ve never known you to carry a gun on a case before. From Hardeman’s story, they were all set and waiting for you the moment you stepped in. Yet you came out of it with nothing but a grazed side. Pretty damned lucky if you walked in there without knowing what was coming.”

“What are you trying to prove?” Shayne asked.

“That Mayme Martin talked to you this afternoon. She’s the only contact you had with the case before you arrived. It must have been her that tipped you off. And if she told you that much, she must have told you a lot more. Don’t hold out on us. I know how you are about suppressing information until you’re all ready to spring it and clean up—but three people are already dead. Don’t be stubborn and hold out until some more die.”